Leadership of the ruling Awami League (AL) has instructed Member of Parliament (MPs) to revamp the grassroots level organization centring the celebration of Eid-ul Fitr to create mass awareness about development activities of the government and thwart possible opposition agitation by the BNP-led 20-party alliance.
“All Awami League MPs, except those scheduled to perform hajj, have gone to their respective constituencies with specific organizational instructions,” an AL Presidium member told The New Nation on Friday.
BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda, during the last couple of weeks, regularly issuing threat that the 20-party alliance would go for a tougher movement after the Eid if the government fails to give fresh general
elections under a non-party caretaker administration.
As part of the organizational preparations for the ensuing agnti-government movement, the BNP high command has reorganized the party’s Dhaka City Committee with BNP Standing Committee member and former Mayor Mirza Abbas as its Convenor. A formal announcement of the committee is likely to be made within a couple of days, BNP sources said.
BNP Chairperson Begum Zia is scheduled to leave Dhaka for Saudi Arabia today to perform Umrah and have a family reunion there. Her eldest son and BNP Senir Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman along with his family already reached Saudi Arabia from London while her younger son Arafat Rahman and his family reached there from Malaysia.
Meanwhile, the AL-led 14-party alliance at a meeting yesterday decided to activate its district and upazila committees across the country to have a better coordination among component political parties of the alliance. Besides, the alliance asked the Home Ministry to reorganize the ‘District Law and Order Committee’ with representation of its component parties. However, some top leaders of the alliance expressed concern about overall state of law and order across the country.
Held at the AL President’s Dhanmondi office with 14-party alliance Coordinator and Health Minister Mohammad Nasim in the chair the meeting was attended, among others, by Workers Party President and Civil Aviation Minister Rashed Khan Menon, JSD President and Information Minister Hasanul Huq Inu, former Foreign Minister and AL Joint Secretary Dr Dipu Moni, former Industries Minister and Shyammobadi Dal General Secretary Dilip Barua. The meeting also decided to send a delegation to Gaza with relief material to extend solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are under brutal bomb attacks from Israel. Briefing journalists after the meeting, Mohammad Nasim, also an AL Presidium member, said, “The people will not support the BNP-Jamaat post-Eid movement.”
When his attention drawn to the BNP Chairperson’s Thursday’s assertion that the BNP will give befitting reply if the government and the ruling party use force against the opposition’s democratic movement, Nasim said, “The 14-party alliance will resist the movement if it is violent. We will not do anything if they agitate peacefully.”
When asked, BNP Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said, “Begum Zia will lead a peaceful democratic movement.” He, however, did not elaborate.
Political observers, however, referred to last year’s opposition campaign, which was violent and killed over 150 persons, including a number of police personnel.
They expressed the apprehension that the country will enter into a new phase of confrontation if leaders of the ruling and opposition parties do not refrain from using fiery speeches.
